SUB-COMMITTEE ON
RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS AND SEARCH
AND RESCUE
4th session
Agenda item 7
COMSAR 4/7/2
14 April 1999
Original: ENGLISH
EMERGENCY RADIOCOMMUNICATIONS: FALSE ALERTS AND INTERFERENCE
Prevention of false alerts and unnecessary relays in order to eliminate the unnecessary sounding of alarms on ship and coast radio stations
Note by the United States
SUMMARY
Executive summary: The United States has tested MF/HF DSC units and has identified numerous potential problems that may be contributing to the unnecessary false alert, relay and alarm rate. The United States recommends that other administrations perform similar tests.
Action to be taken: Paragraph 5
Related documents: Resolution A.806 (19)
Introduction
1 Tests of MF/HF DSC radios by the United States have identified numerous potential problems associated with the units that may be contributing to the problem of excessive false alerts, relays and alarms.
Discussion
2 The United States is concerned that the excessive false alerts and unnecessary relays and alarms will have an increasing affect on the workload of RCC watchstanders, and may have the potential of affecting their ability to respond to an actual emergency.
3 To identify the cause of these problems, the United States performed tests on five MF/HF DSC radios. Tests results showed the following:
.1 one model occasionally inserted in a distress relay menu the wrong identity of vessel in distress. If the error was not caught and manually changed by the operator, the relay message identified the wrong vessel in distress;
.2 one model easily allowed the operator to create and transmit a distress relay from received distress acknowledgements, distress relays, and distress relay acknowledgments;
